Baseball and softball organizations periodically publish and update equipment standards and/or requirements including performance limitations for ball bats. Ball bat manufacturers produce ball bats designed to meet the applicable performance limitations of the applicable baseball and softball organizations. Some individuals or groups, commonly referred to as “bat doctors”, intentionally manipulate the construction of ball bats previously approved by certain baseball and softball organizations in an effort to change the performance of such ball bats to levels beyond the applicable limitations and/or restrictions. For example, bat doctors have been found to remove end caps of ball bats and shave or otherwise remove material from the inner surfaces of the ball bat. This practice has occurred frequently on aluminum ball bats, and typically results in the wall thickness of the barrel portion of the bat becoming thinner thereby enabling the bat to perform beyond the performance limits. However, such bat shaving or material removal severely limits the useful life of such ball bats.
Many ball bats include barrel portions constructed of a fiber composite material formed by several discrete sheets or layers of fibers aligned in a resin. Some ball bats constructed of fiber composite material can become more responsive when rolled, repeatedly compressed in a vice, or otherwise severely compressed. The rolling or compression of such composite ball bats can cause the resin or other material between the layers of fibers to break or fracture enabling the layers of fiber composite material to move with respect to each other upon impact with a ball and provide enhanced performance. The condition is sometimes referred to as a “double-wall effect”. A composite bat that has been “rolled” will often exhibit no visible signs or evidence of having been tampered with. Accordingly, a concern exists in the Industry that players may be using ball bats that have been rolled or otherwise manipulated by bat doctors such that the ball bat that originally satisfied all the performance requirements of applicable baseball or softball organizations, now may exceed those performance limitations giving that player an unfair advantage and potentially raising other issues.
Accordingly, a need exists for a ball bat having a barrel portion formed of a fiber composite material that will fail during rolling or that will provide other indications or evidence of having been rolled or otherwise improperly tampered with. What is needed is a bat that fails when rolled, or begins to fail when rolled such that an umpire, coach or other baseball or softball organization representative can readily determine whether such a bat has been improperly rolled or otherwise tampered with.
Still further, some ball bats formed of fiber composite material can break down overtime and normal use thereby enabling the layers of the fiber composite material to move with respect to each other upon impact (in some instances, this is referred to as a double-wall effect). The result can be that such a ball bat formed of a fiber composite material may initially satisfy all performance limitations of applicable baseball and softball organizations, but overtime and use, the composite structure of the barrel portion of the ball bat can begin to break down and allow for the performance of the ball bat to improve often beyond the allowable performance limits. Again, creating an unfair advantage for the player using such a ball bat.
In response to these issues, many baseball and softball organizations such as Little League baseball, American Softball Association, and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (“NCAA”) have instituted advanced break in (“ABI”) tests in an effort to detect if the performance of the ball bat improves after rolling to such a degree so as to exceed established performance limits. The ABI test can be used as a measure for how a bat will perform after having been rolled or after having been used over an extended period of time. Bats whose performance improves after rolling are rejected. A ball bat that exhibits cracks after or during performance of the bat rolling procedure is considered to have passed such ABI tests.
Accordingly, a need exists for a ball bat construction wherein the barrel portion of the ball bat does not fail or crack during normal use, but when the barrel portion of the bat is rolled in an ABI test, the barrel portion exhibits visible cracks. In other words, a need exists for a ball bat that properly performs and fully satisfies all applicable bat performance limitations of applicable baseball or softball organizations, but fails or shows evidence of failure of the ball bat upon being rolled or otherwise tampered with. What is needed is a bat construction that provides visible evidence to a person inspecting the barrel portion of a bat, that the particular bat has been rolled or otherwise tampered with in an effort to improve the bat's performance beyond applicable specified limits.